Giving the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Annual Lecture on Monday, Professor Richard S Lindzen launched a scathing attack on the scientific illiteracy of politicians and activists who claim ‘the science is settled’ and demand ‘unprecedented changes in all aspects of society’.

Professor Lindzen, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argued that it was totally implausible for such a complex ‘multifactor system’ as the climate to be summarised by just one variable, global mean temperature change, and primarily controlled by just a 1-2 per cent variance in the energy budget due to CO2.

Directly criticising the extravagant models for which climate scientists have become famous, Lindzen likens them to ‘the formula for being an expert marksman: shoot first and declare whatever you hit to be the target.’ This, he says, cannot be evidence for anything.

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